Also known as “contemplation in action,” this is of particular interest to people who lead active lives of service, and who, by and large, are more comfortable out there in the world than in silence looking within. Parker Palmer, in his The Active Life, makes a good case for this alternation between service and reflection on it. Essentially, it is a form of extended Awareness Examen, where we constantly link what we are involved in with an openness to hear God’s voice on what we are doing. In many ways, it resembles Kolb’s Learning Cycle in which we reflect on our experience, trying to make sense of it in light of our sense of call, and reframe it in terms of next steps. Active contemplation helps us avoid burn-out or resentment or deception by always keeping us focussed on the fact that we are living and acting in God’s World, not ours, for the sake of God’s Mission, not ours.

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